Just commit, no matter the response. Adding /s is akin to explaining a joke after you tell it. If someone doesn’t understand or pick up on the sarcasm, it’s not your responsibility to spell it out for them. You add /s because you don’t want to be held accountable.
Just commit, no matter the response.
I’m not seeing that as not bravery, its edgy angst.
If someone doesn’t understand or pick up on the sarcasm, it’s not your responsibility to spell it out for them.
You do you, man. I’m not interested in insulting or offending people because they can’t parse my vague joke text on the internet. Why would I risk ruining someone’s day on a chance a silly joke could be perceived as thoughtless hate? I’d like them laughing with me, not taking yet another tiny piece of their soul that this life does to us everyday anyway.
You add /s because you don’t want to be held accountable.
Damn right! I also don’t hand loaded firearms to children because I don’t want them hurt. Why do you value your humor so much you’re willing to hurt people?
I’ve noticed people often have completely different answers to the question of who bears the greater responsibility for successful communication (listener or speaker). I’ll add this one to my file.
I also don’t hand loaded firearms to children
This is just where we differ, I guess.
Assuming everyone is a native English speaker is asinine. Disguising hostility as humor and expecting everyone to understand within a global audience scope is nonsense.
This is akin to respecting pronouns, explaining memes and images in alt text, and speaking up against bigotry. It is simply being a respecting human being with self awareness. You got to be the best semi-sentient entity you can be. /s
I set the language of this post to English.
Yeah I used to think so too, until my SO told me “Hey, I get it, your sarcasm is really funny to me. But everyone else thinks your an asshole”
I have a very, very dry sarcasm, and with my tone most people can’t tell that I’m usually not being serious when I’m talking, let alone in messages. So yeah, you can hold to the “It’s their fault for not getting it”, which is what I thought too, but in the court of public opinion they’re not going to see you that way. I thought I was a very funny sarcastic guy. They thought I was the asshole that they all braced to work with, and that’s why I never got invited to parties.
You just hit on the big difference. Your SO actually knows you so even in text she can probably get your sarcasm. I don’t know anybody in this thread so I can’t always honestly distinguish between some sarcastic comments and crazy ones. Some people are actually crazy.
Exactly. We all have nuances in our sarcasm, mine is very dry and sometimes I honestly don’t even notice I’m being sarcastic. I learned I can’t use it on people who have never seen it before, or rather if I do be expected for them to take my literally.
Bruh u gotta stop caring what random dickheads think. Fuck em what are they gonna do not invite ya to a party have your own party with your better friends who get what sarcasm is.
I appreciate what you’re saying, but trust me, it was me. A classic case of “If you walk around town all day and all you smell is shit, check the bottom of your shoe.” When people came back to talk to me at my job I thought I was joking, when really my form of joking was a very dry sarcasm that could easily be taken offensively. I just never knew it.
I learned to introduce it slowly over time, see how people react to it. If they pick up on it then I’m cleared to keep going, but to never assume that someone will pick up on it by default.
I agree but also want to point out that as social animals we can’t help but care what others think of us. You’d need to be a psychopath to not care and I believe that even they do because being liked makes it easier to get what you want.
You right as social animals we do have a need for human connection (to be liked as u said) but that need can be fullfilled by our friends as we do for them. I dont see why u need everyone to like you i find it very freeing that i can be hated by someone and not care because i know that i have friends who do care. As some motherfucker once said if you can count your good freinds on one hand you know they are real freinds or something along those lines anything more is an excersise in vanity.
Being liked often does get you what you want or at least makes it easyer. I suspect that phychopaths are constantly weighing up how much they need you but then again phycopathy often does come with narsasism which tends to give people a need to be loved homelander and trump are excellent examples of narsasism leading to the need to be loved.
Do you now make sure to say “JK JK LOLOL” after?
I don’t care what you do. I’m just telling you what happened to me. I thought I was sarcastic and that I had some elite sense of humor that only the smartest people could get. Maybe that’s true, I don’t know. What I do know is that my “elite tier sarcasm” that no one else got ended with me sitting alone most of the time with people avoiding me.
You do what you want. You can feel free to laugh at my advice if you want, doesn’t bother me.
But, I’d invite you to really reflect on yourself about how you may come off to others if you’ve never done it. Just, think about it. For me it didn’t really sink in until I realized my friends were going out and not inviting me, and I realized that I was really, really alone. I’m very grateful my SO sat me down and told me that. It was a hard conversation, I didn’t like what it said about me, but lessening the sarcasm was a small price to pay to be a lot more approachable.
But hey I’m just a stranger on the internet.
In all seriousness, I typically refrain from sarcasm in person. I’m also glad you grew from your experience, and your SO seems thoughtful. This post is solely referring to the internet.
Thanks, appreciate it. Smart move not using it in person with people you don’t know. Online, it depends on the situation for me. Most of the time I find that the context the comments are in will pick it up. However, there are some comment chains that I add an /s just to make sure it’s clear, or if I’m changing context from a sarcastic tone to a non-sarcastic tone.
Reddit was and Lemmy is pretty good about it. If I’m ever on corpo-social-media, which, not really anymore, I never use sarcasm. Even if I said it’s sarcasm someone will still jump down thinking I’m being serious.
We add /s because:
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Poe’s law is a thing. For the uninitiated: “Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is utterly impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that someone won’t mistake for the genuine article.”
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Tone of voice, conversely, is not a thing over text. This is the normal and intended tell for sarcasm, and without it, we have the problem in point 1. Therefore we have to use /s, winking smileys, etc, to denote sarcasm.
The /s tone indicator on the internet is a relatively recent development. We got by many years without using them.
The /s tone indicator on the internet is a relatively recent development. We got by many years without using them.
And how did we do that? With other indicators. /s is just a more specific evolution of ;). But winky face is used for more than just sarcasm, so confusion develops. Thus, we have /s
Bring back winky face.
Yes daddy ;)
“I don’t like this new thing everyone has been doing for years now, nothing should ever change”
- weskerGo sit in your geocities page and murmur your ICQ handle over and over to yourself. Tone indicators have been a nice addition to online discussion.
You built your own cage and you like it.
I believe you believe that. You should go drink some water and take a walk outside. You sound stressed.
Your slashes and letters are lashes and fetters.
This is a fundamentally dseems like an argument than in your post, and more or less is just an argument against any sort of progress or innovation. “We got by without ____ for many years, so what benefit could they offer us?”
If communication is intended, then the speaker or writer has a responsibility to make an effort toward being accurately understood. That effort involves using forms, formats, and punctuation that is old and well established, as well as more novel elements of them.
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Nobody needs to explain sarcasm, but sometimes you need to indicate satire.
Or, I just want to imply that you are a /super /special person. IMHO, it’s just good to give appropriate context to someone /s.
A totally reasonable take.
Is this sarcasm? I can’t tell.
God if only there was some way of indicating sarcasm…
I feel that everyone on the internet just gets me. The world would be such a better place if everyone were as kind and gentle as they are surfin’ the tubes and sharing good vibes like they do on 4chan.
Also, OP likes to rape oxen. Just throwing that out there. I don’t judge though.
I mean if you are willing to get up there and rape an ox…
How about just not posting any useless shit that needs a /s? Sarcasm often is not as clever or funny as the poster thinks it is.
What qualifies as “useless shit” is to be determined, but I agree with you. If you need to use /s, your quip isn’t as cunning or pointed as you think.
No. Fucking NO. It’s insane to me that anyone could’ve lived through the past 10 years and not see how necessary it is to always use the /s tag. There’s reasonable evidence that Donald Trump’s original campaign never would’ve even got off the ground if it weren’t for people sarcastically supporting him and idiots not realizing it was sarcasm
Zero to Donald Trump in 10 seconds.
And?
That’s it. That’s the extent.
I thought it meant sincere
I never really thought about it before, but yeah, I think I can agree with this. However, seeing people use the /s doesn’t bother me.
/s when the point is what’s important
no /s when the joke is what’s important
You’ve ignored the wider picture with this. There are generally 4 categories in which all comments fall:
- Sarcasm read as sarcasm
- Sarcasm read as being serious
- Being serious read as sarcasm
- Being serious read as being serious
If everyone used /s 2. and 3. would disappear. Yes, you can think it is cowardly to avoid 2., but I think it is much more important to also avoid 3. by tagging all sarcasm.
I have seen time and again that the /s is vital. There are always idiots that don’t get the joke, and sometimes, those idiots happen to be admins.
Not even idiots. Sarcasm is entirely culture-specific. Even two native speakers from different cultures can easily mistake a sarcastic text for a serious one, and vice-versa. This doesn’t even touch the difficulties ESLLs experience with online sarcasm.
But I still don’t use /s because I’m a lazy fuck.
You are correct.
I wouldn’t say cowardly, but I concur that /s is used by the feeble and weak of society. If you cannot tell that I am being sarcastic when I say that I am going to cut you into small pieces and feed you to the hounds, you deserved to be cut into small pieces and fed to the hounds.
Okay calm down, Ramsay Bolton.
